But, married to save the Queen's reputation to a lady of the court, Andrea de Taverney, he was falling in love with her, she having loved him at first sight, and this love naturally fortified his tacit pledge never to wrong his sovereign.
Hence the Queen was miserable, and all the more as Charny had departed on some errand for the King of which he had not told her the nature.
Probably this was why she had played the flirt with Mirabeau. The genius had flattered her by kneeling at her feet. But she too soon compared the bloated, heavy, leonine man with Charny.
George Charny was elegance itself, the noble and the courtier and yet more a seaman, who had saved a war-ship by nailing the colors to the mast and bidding the crew fight on.
In his brilliant uniform he looked like a prince of battles, while Mirabeau, in his black suit, resembled a canon of the church.
The fourteenth of July came impassibly, draped in clouds and promising rain and a gale when it ought to have illumined a splendid day.
But the French laugh even on a rainy day.
Though drenched with rain and dying of hunger, the country delegates and National Guards, ranked along the main street, made merry and sang. But the population, while unable to keep the wet off them, were not going to let them starve. Food and drink were lowered by ropes out of the windows. Similar offerings were made in all the thoroughfares they passed through.
During their march, a hundred and fifty thousand people took places on the edges of the Field of Mars, and as many stood behind them. It was not possible to estimate the number on the surrounding hills.